The web revolution has brought many advantages, but has introduced several problems, including those pertaining to font rendering. Developers usually cannot change which browser and OS a website visitors uses. Until recently, there were only a small handful of “Web safe” fonts we could use. While offering little variety (or means of expression), these fonts were very well-crafted and specifically adjusted—or even developed—for the screen, so there was little to worry about in terms of display quality.
However, when rendering documents across various computers, the fidelity of the rendered document is largely based on the fonts available on the users system. If the original font used in the document is not available on the user system, then currently the industry tries to find a substitution font to take the place of the original font. This often causes the document to render differently than the creator of the document intended. In addition, because the fonts available on users systems vary from user to user, viewing the document on one user's machine may look different than viewing it on another user's machine.
Having a great choice of fonts that can be used on websites and in other documents makes the developers job difficult. Additionally, operating system (OS) makers may apply different strategies to render how typefaces are displayed. The rendering of these glyphs can differ significantly between systems and font formats. Even well designed fonts may not look right on a user's system.
Accordingly, what is desired are improved methods and apparatus for solving some of the problems discussed above. Additionally, what is desired are improved methods and apparatus for reducing some of the drawbacks discussed above.